Contents

Problem

With all of these fancy packages written by Erlang experts, how do you set up a cluster by hand?

Motivation

Show prospective users the basis for the Erlang magic instead of hiding it within the current set of packages that are available. But they are somewhat overwhelming for the novice user.

Solution

If you wanted a simple three node cluster, you could execute the following steps by hand.

Prepare Some Utility Scripts

Note: The following example is for Linux or other Unix variants (including Mac OS X). On windows using cygwin the shell works as written. In a win32 environment, it's similar except you should be creating .bat files instead of .sh files.

Install erlang somewhere, say /usr/local/otp_NNN

mkdir NodeStorage; mkdir NodeStorage/ANode; mkdir NodeStorage/BNode

export ERL_TOP=(erlang install dir, in bash) or setenv ( csh )

cd $ERL_TOP/bin

mkdir NodeA NodeB NodeC

The following script is useful if you have more than one box connected via NFS to the same filesystem. You will need to create a shell script (e.g., ANode.sh) that contains the following:

This command brings up the process manager, where there is a Nodes sub menu which allows you to select which node's processes to inspect or trace; see the Erlang man page for details. Alternately, you can use the Erlang toolbar,